Motor-carriage driving mechanism



No. 627,282. Patented June 20, I899.

W. E'. TWICHELL.

MOTOR CARRIAGE DRIVING MECHANISM.

(Appli catidn filed Nov. 4, 1898.)

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Nd. 627,282. Patented June 20, I899. I

W.--E. TWIGI'IELL.

MOTOR CARRIAGE DRIVING MECHANISM.

A (Application filed HA9. 4, 1898. .(N o.Mn.dal.) 2 Sheats-Sheel 2.

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NITED "STATES PATENT. OFFICE.

WALTER E. TVVIOHELL, OF ST. HELENA, CALIFORNIA.

MOTOR-CARRIAGE DRIVING M ECHANI SM.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters l atent No. 627,282, dated June 20, 1899.

, Application filed November 4, 1898. Serial No. 695,502. (No model.)

T0 otZZ whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, WALTER E. TVVIOHELL, a citizen of the United States, residing at St. Helena, county of Napa, State of California, have invented an Improvement in Motor- Garriage Driving Mechanism; and I hereby declare the following to be a full, clear, and exact description of the same.

My invention relates to improvements in motor carriages and vehicles and in the mechanism by which such vehicles or equivalent contrivances are propelled.

It consists, essentially, in an improved means for transmitting power from the main driving-shaft of the motor to a supplemental or counter shaft and a means for transmitting the power directly from the counter shaft to the wheels to be driven, in mechanism for reversing the apparatus, and in details of construction, which will be more fully explained by reference to the accompanying drawings, in which Figure 1 is a side elevation. Fig. 2 is a plan view. Fig. 3 is a detail of the powertransmitting device. Fig. lis a modification of the same. Fig. 5 is a detail of the reversing-gear.

The object of my present invention is to simplify the mechanism intermediate between the motor and the shafts of wheels to be driven and to provide a novel means for applying the power of the motor to the shaft or shafts to be driven thereby.

In the present case I have illustrated the invention as applied to a vehicle, of which A may represent the bed. B B are the rear and the front wheels, respectively. The rear wheels are mounted upon axles and are turnable by means of chains passing over sprocketwheels F upon the wheel-hubs from sprocketwheels F, which are located upon a countershaft F. The front wheels 13 have the short carrying spindles, which are pivoted or jointed, as shown at O, to the front axle C and are turnable about these joints, so that both wheels are turned in unison to one side or the other to\steer the vehicle without turning the main axle O. Chains to drive these wheels in unison with the rear wheels pass around sprocket-wheels 'J, which are fixed to the front-wheel hubs. Thence the two parts of the vehicle-wheels.

chain pass over grooved guide-rollers I, which are supported and adjustable with relation to each other from a yoke 1 so that one part around the latter, thence back over the other roller 1, and down to the sprocket-wheel J. By this construction I am enabled to drive the two front wheels directly from the counter-shaft without the interposition of another long shaft with sprocket wheels to which power must first be transmitted from the counter-shaft and then transmitted from this other shaft to the wheels. These rollers I are slidable upon their spindles, so as to allow the chains to readily adjust themselves to the sprockets J when the wheels are turned. By this construction the guide-rollers I being so situated nearly in line above the short turnable spindles of the wheels willchange the direction of the driving-chain, so that motion is transmitted from the counter-shaft approximately horizontally to these rollers, and thence approximately vertically to the sprockets J, and this allows the wheels to turn without essentially altering the tension or direction of motion of the chain.

In a former application made by me, for which patent was issued September 6, 1898, No. 610,503, I have shown a mechanism for transmitting power from the motor, consisting of a crank-shaft havinga sprocket-wheel thereon, a chain connecting said sprocketwheel With the counter-shaft, from which by other chains and sprocket-wheels and intermediate shafts power is transmitted to the In the present case I have reduced the mechanism necessary first by the employment of the guide-rollers I and a single endless chain to the front wheels in place of an intermediate shaft and two chains from the counter-shaft, and I have further reduced the mechanism and increased the rapidity of movement of the counter-shaft by mechanism which consists of a disk having the curved channels or guides D, which are fixed upon and rotated by the shaft D of the motor. The connecting-rod or pitman 2 has rollers 3 journaled upon it at such points that they will clasp the star-shaped yoke D,

or, if the latter be a similarly-shaped channel in the face of a disk a single roller will be adapted to travel in that channel, the result in either case being that there will be four reciprocations of the rod 2 for each complete revolution of the shaft D, and these may be increased or diminished by making a less or greater number of the convolutions D with which the guiding roller or rollers engage. At the opposite end of the pitman 2 are hinged or pivoted rods 4, which diverge and have their outer endsconnected with one end of links 5, and the otherend of these links is pivoted to an arm 6, which extends radially in each direct-ion from a loose hub or sleeve on the counter-shaft F. From the junction of the arms 4 with the links 5 the rack-bars 7 extend inwardly and have teeth on their inner faces, which engage with the toothed gears 8 upon the counter-shaft. The rack-bars are retained in contact with these gears by springs pressing the bars, and the rods 4 and links 5 are caused to move in unison by means of a guide 9, which extends from the joint connection 10 across the shaft F and is jointed at 11 to arms 12, which extend outwardly and connect with the links 5, as shown. The rod 9 is separated to form a yoke where it passes the shaft F and is slidable through openings made in the hub or sleeve of the support 6, so that this rod 9 may reciprocate in unison with the movements of the pitman 2, and the diverging rods 4 and when the racks move in the opposite direction. By the peculiar arrangement of this transmitting mechanism one pair of the racks will always be acting to impel the gears with which they are connected and turn the shaft F in a forward direction, while the others will be retracted, and the pawl-and-ratchet or clutch mechanism will allow them to turn backward freely without affecting the movement of the shaft. In this manner I am enabled to apply a power continuously to rotate the-shaft F at each reciprocation of the pitman 2, and there may be as many of these reciprocations as there are numbers of convolutions of the guide D.

In Fig. 4 I have shown a modification of this mechanism in which a ratchet-wheel 13 is surrounded by a cylindrical sleeve 14, having a diagonal slot 15 made across its face. The reciprocating arms in this case have travelers I fixed to them which are slidable in these slots, and as they slide in line parallel with the shaft sleeve to be advanced at each reciprocation, andrapid reciprocations will produce a continuous revolution of the shaft in the same manneraspreviouslydescribed. Thisdevice will give aless speedy movement and a greater power, but is essentially equivalent in its operation with the device previously described.

In the reversing-gear in my former application I showed a pinion fixed upon the central shaft and rocking pawls P upon opposite sides with spirally-twisted bars 0, which were slidable in correspondingly-shaped slots, so that when moved in one direction the pawls would be turned so that the teeth upon one side would engage with the pinion, causing the rotation of the shaft to turn the exterior sleeve in one direction, and when the opposite side of the rocking pawls were engaged the shaft would be turned in the opposite direction. In my present invention I have reversed these clutches, making an interior gear 'R in the outer casing Q, and the rocking clutches P are reversed, so that the pivotpoints are central upon the sleeve surrounding the shaft and the ends of the arched locking-clutches are adapted to engage with the internal gear-teeth R, this construction giving a stronger and more effective mechanism than that previously described.

Having thus described my invention, what I claim as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is

1. A vehicle having mounted upon it a mo tor, rear wheels loosely turnable upon the fixed axle, front wheels turnable upon short hinged spindles which have their inner ends pivoted to a stationary front axle and turnable about said pivots, a counter-shaft to .which power is transmitted directly from the motor,sprocket-wheels upon the counter-shaft and similar sprockets in the same Vertical planes fixed upon the forward-wheel hubs,

grooved direction-pulleys and spindles upon which they are loosely turnable and chains passingbetween the sprocket-wheels and over the direction-pulleys whereby the front vehicle-wheels are driven directly from the counter-shaft and are turnable about the pivotpoints of their spindles, substantially as described.

2. A vehicle-body having front and rear wheels turnable upon their axles, a motor carried upon the vehicle, a counter-shaft jour .naled to the vehicle-body between the front and rear wheel axles, sprocket-wheels fixed upon and turnable with the counter-shaft to which motion is communicated, other sprock et-wheels fixed to and turnable with the front wheels, grooved direction-pulleys mounted and loosely slidable upon spindlesin line essentially above the front-wheel sprockets whereby motion is transmitted directly from the counter-shaft to. said front wheels, and the latter are allowed to turn from side to side without deranging the alinement of the driving-chain. the diagonal positionof the slots causes the 3. A vehicle-body having front and rear j wheels turnable upon their axles, a motor carried upon the vehicle, a counter-shaft journaled to the vehicle-body between the front and rear axles and sprocket-wheels upon the counter-shaft and upon the Wheels with chains whereby motion is transmitted to both sets of Wheels and the counter-shaft, a mechanism whereby power of the motor is transmitted to the counter-shaft consisting of return curved yokes or channels, a pitman having guide-rollers adapted to travel within the curved yokes, arms pivoted to and diverging from the opposite end of the pitman and links with which said arms connect whereby the outer ends are alternately separated and brought together by the reciprocations of the pitman, and rack-bars connecting with the arms and links, pinions on the counter-shaft with which said rack-bars engage, and pawland-ratchet mechanisms whereby the pinions are rotated freely in one direction and act to rotate the shaft upon which they are mounted when moved in the opposite direction.

4. A mechanism for transmitting rotary motion of a motor-shaft to a counter-shaft, consisting of sinuous curved yokes or channels carried by the motor-shaft, a pitman having a roller or rollers at one end adapted to engage and be reciprocated by the movements of the yoke, a hub or sleeve through which the counter-shaft extends and turns freely, said sleeve having arm's extending radially in opposite directions therefrom, diverging arms having their adjacent ends pivoted to the reciprocating pitman, links having one with the divergent rods, other rods connecting with the outer ends of correspondinglypivoted links and their adjacent ends pivoted to the end of a guide which extends from the pitman and is divided and slidable through openings in the hub or sleeve upon the shaft, pinions with pawl-and-ratchet or clutch mechanisms by which they are caused to engage with and turn the counter-shaft when moved in one direction and to turn without action thereon when rotated in the opposite direction, and rack-bars having the outer ends connecting with the movable ends of the jointed links and their teeth engaging the peripheries of the pinions with guides whereby a the teeth of the rack-bars are maintained in mesh with the pinion-teeth.

5. A mechanism for transmitting power hand. I

WALTER E. TWICHELlL.

Witnesses:

HARRY J. LASK, CHAS. J. MCCARTHY. 

